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Magic (Kyralia series)
This article covers the magic system that appears in the books by Australian writer Trudi Canavan that takes place in her Kyralia universe. Basics All living things contain a store of life energy, including humans. Some humans have a larger store of life energy than other people. Such people are potential magicians. A magician is someone who has managed to form a mental connection between their mind and their store of life energy. Such a person exhibit telepathic abilities and the ability to shape their excess life energy to different uses, which is the phenomenon known as magic. The mental connection, the awakening of one's magic abilities, might happen in two ways. Some people have such strong potential that they naturally manifest magic by accident in a moment of emotional stress. Some call them naturals. The second way is for an established magician to help a potential magician to unlock their magic ability through mental exercises. Once the connection has been established, the new magician must learn the skill of Control, which means that they have to be in full control of their magic at all times, even unconsciously, to keep any magic from leaking during emotional moments. Failure to learn Control, whether from lack of guidance or mental deficiencies, will unavoidably lead to death, often a violent death from uncontrolled release of energy. The most common use of magic is for a magician to reshape some of their excess life energy into mechanical force, heat or light, applied in different ways depending on the magicians goal. These lead to applications like the movement of objects, light globes and illusions. Life energy might also be used as-is for certain tasks of magic. Applications Applications of magic tend to be passed on from teacher to student, most commonly through telepathic lessons, so what a magician can do reflects how knowledgeable their teacher(s) were. It is possible to discover applications by oneself, but it can be exceedingly dangerous to try something no one has done before. Strikes Most magicians learn how to perform strikes, essentially propelled projectiles of different energy types created through their magic. Examples include forcestrikes, stunstrikes, heatstrikes and mindstrikes. Shields Magicians can extend their natural body barrier into different surrounding shapes that can take on additional properties. This might be to offer increased protection against physical attacks or increased protection against magical attacks. Another way to use a shield is to make it heat-isolating, keeping outside temperatures out and preserving temperatures inside the shield. Levitation Some magicians can master a form of levitation. Light Magicians can project lights. One such use of magic is to create something called a globe light, a sphere of light whose position the magician can manipulate to place it where it is useful. Illusions Magicians can create visual illusions based upon their visual thoughts. Presumably, this works through a more complex application of projecting light. Healing Some magicians have learned the complex skill of magical healing. The skill includes using other forms of magic for medical work, like telekinesis for setting bones, but mostly refers to applying unreshaped life energy directly to a person in order to speed up the healing process of their body. Healing can only be done while in direct skin contact with the patient. Strictly speaking, healing seems to speed up a patients healing through accelerated cell division, which might cause accelerated dehydration and consumption of nutrients that the healing might not be able to compensate for. The skill of healing can paradoxically be used to cause harm to a person by giving the magician the ability to directly influence their organs. External Links * Trudi Canavan on Wikipedia Category:Magic systems